We successfully launched our first fully dedicated rideshare mission, SSO-A SmallSat Express, in December 2018 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Not only did it represent Spaceflight’s first purchase of an entire Falcon 9 to accommodate the growing number of customers seeking affordable rideshare options to launch their spacecraft into orbit, it was also an historic launch:

SSO-A: the largest single rideshare mission from a US-based launch vehicle to date.

Spaceflight contracted with 64 spacecraft from 34 different organizations for the mission to a Sun-Synchronous Low Earth Orbit. It included 15 microsats and 49 cubesats from both commercial and government entities, of which more than 25 were from international organizations from 17 countries, including United States, Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Finland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Germany, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Poland, Canada, Brazil, and India.

Customers On Board

A few notable customers included University of North Carolina-Wilmington, NovaWurks, Ghalam, Helios Wire / Sirion Global, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB), Astrocast, Honeywell Aerospace, HawkEye 360, Nevada Museum of Art, Fleet Space Technologies, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Audacy, Capella Space Corporation, University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and many others. Read their stories here.